C. Wright Mills

Who is to blame for unemployment? The system or the individual?

According to C. Wright Mills, very often personal troubles, like an individual’s joblessness, turn out to be public issues. A sociologist must look at people and society in a wider context, or even from a historical perspective to point to the sources of social inequality and the nature of power distribution.

• We will look at the life and career of Charles Wright Mills.
• Then, we will discuss C. Wright Mills’ beliefs.
• We will mention his conflict theory in sociology.
• We will move on to two of his most influential books, The Power Elite and The Sociological Imagination.
• C. Wright Mills’ theory on private troubles and public issues will also be analysed.
• Finally, we will discuss his legacy.

C. Wright Mills’ biography

Charles Wright Mills was born in 1916 in Texas, United States. His father was a salesman, so the family frequently moved and Mills lived in many places during his childhood.

He started his university studies at Texas A&M University, and then went to the University of Texas in Austin. He received his BA degree in Sociology and his MA degree in Philosophy. Mills received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1942. His dissertation focused on the sociology of knowledge and on pragmatism.

He published sociological articles in the American Sociological Review and in the American Journal of Sociology while still a student, which was a great accomplishment. Even at this stage, he had established a reputation for himself as a skilled sociologist.

In his personal life, Mills was married four times to three different women. He had a child from each of his wives. The sociologist suffered from a heart condition and had three heart attacks towards the end of his life. He died in 1962 at the age of 46.

Fig. 1 - C. Wright Mills established himself at an early stage in his career.

C. Wright Mills’ career

During his PhD, Mills became an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, where he taught for another four years.

He started to publish journalistic articles in The New Republic, The New Leader and in Politics. Thus, he began to practice public sociology.

After Maryland, he went to be a research associate at Columbia University, and later he became an assistant professor in the sociology department of the institution. In 1956, he was promoted to Professor there. Between 1956 and 1957 Mills was a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Copenhagen.

C. Wright Mills’ beliefs about public sociology

Mills' ideas on public sociology and the responsibilities of social scientists were formulated fully during his time at Columbia.

He claimed that it was not enough to merely observe society; sociologists must act on their social responsibility toward the public and affirm moral leadership. This was the only way to take over leadership from people who lacked the qualifications for it.

Have a look at this quote from C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings (2000).

C. Wright Mills’ conflict theory

Mills focused on several issues within sociology, including social inequality, the power of elites, the shrinking middle-class, the individual’s place in society and the significance of historical perspective in sociological theory. He is normally associated with conflict theory, which viewed social issues from a different perspective than traditionalist, functionalist thinkers.

One of Mill’s most famous works was The Power Elite which he published in 1956.

C. Wright Mills: The Power Elite (1956)

Mills was influenced by the theoretical perspective Max Weber was famous for. It is present in all of his work, including the one on The Power Elite.

According to Mills’ theory, military, industrial and government elites created an interconnected power structure through which they controlled society for their own benefits at the expense of the public. There is no real competition between social groups, neither for power nor for material benefits, the system is not fair, and the distribution of resources and power is unjust and unequal.

Mills described the power elite as a peaceful, relatively open group, which respects civil liberties and normally follows constitutional principles. While many of its members are from prominent, powerful families, people from any walks of life can become members of the power elite if they work hard, adopt the ‘suitable’ values and get to the highest-ranking positions of three industries in particular. According to Mills, the US’s power elite has its members from three areas:

• the highest ranks of politics (the president and key advisors)
• the leadership of the biggest corporate organisations
• and the highest ranks of the military.

The power elite is not a secret society ruling by terror and dictatorship, as some conspiracy theories claim. It does not have to be. It is enough, according to Mills, that this group of people control the highest positions in business and politics and that they have a culture of shared values and beliefs. They do not have to turn to repression or violence.

Let us now look at Mills’s other influential work, The Sociological Imagination (1959).

C. Wright Mills: The Sociological Imagination (1959)

In this book, Mills describes how sociologists understand and study society and the world. He especially stresses the importance of seeing individuals and their everyday lives in connection to grand social forces rather than individually.

The historical context of society and the individual’s life can lead us to the realization that ‘personal troubles’ are actually ‘public issues’ for Mills.

C. Wright Mills: private troubles and public issues

Mills argued that one needs to adopt a sociological imagination to see the structural problems behind individual troubles.

Fig. 2 - According to Mills, unemployment is a public issue rather than a private trouble.

Mills considered the example of unemployment. He argued that if only a couple of people were unemployed, it could be blamed on their laziness or personal struggles and incompetencies of the individual. However, millions of people are unemployed in the US, so unemployment is better understood as a public issue because:

C. Wright Mills’ sociological legacy

Charles Wright Mills was an influential journalist and sociologist. His work contributed greatly to the contemporary ways of teaching sociology and thinking about society.

Alongside Hans H. Gerth, he popularised Max Weber’s theories in the US. Furthermore, he introduced Karl Mannheim’s ideas on the sociology of knowledge to the study of politics.

He also created the term ‘New Left’, referring to the leftist thinkers of the 1960s. It is widely used in sociology even today. Two years after his death, an annual award was named in his honour by the Society for the Study of Social Problems.